


the pilot

by epicmoonintensifies



Series: Imagine RWBY Tumblr Transfers [2]
Category: RWBY
Genre: F/M, Mutual Pining, Pining, pre-fall of beacon
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-10-18
Updated: 2020-10-18
Packaged: 2021-03-08 22:01:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,576
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27083794
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/epicmoonintensifies/pseuds/epicmoonintensifies
Summary: James Ironwood hires a non-military pilot for certain missions that might be considered delicate. Neither of you expect this to go well.
Relationships: James Ironwood/Reader
Series: Imagine RWBY Tumblr Transfers [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1979284
Comments: 2
Kudos: 17





	1. Competence

**Author's Note:**

> This was originally requested and filled on tumblr. It has been slightly edited here.
> 
> Sentence Prompt: "Please tell me you know what you're doing."

You could honestly say that you did not care what General Ironwood thought of you. At least, not beyond the vague rule of thumb that you applied to everybody, which was that you hoped that they didn’t think you were a jerk or an idiot, because you were neither. But _other than that_ , you didn’t care.

Really.

Okay, so, you cared a little bit. But not because you were a suck-up or anything. You had sassed off to people far more important than _General James Ironwood_ before. It was just that he was… him. And he had always been respectful to you even though you were nobody to him, and he had never looked at you like you didn’t belong, and he also had the added bonuses of being handsome, confident, competent, and just _nice to you_.

Yeah, you kinda cared what he thought. But the truth was, despite the fact that you had been privately contracted to fly missions for him _twelve times_ before now, he probably didn’t even remember your name… which was fine. Not caring about you was better than thinking bad things about you. That was fine. You could live with that.

So, when he brought his big, broad-shouldered (like _whoa_ ), important self up to the cockpit of _your_ airship, you paid attention.

“We have a problem,” he said without any small talk or greeting whatsoever, which immediately alerted you that there was at least some severity to this ‘problem.’

“You need some fancy flying, sir?” you asked, settling one gloved hand on the leather-wrapped throttle levers. “Or an emergency landing? I can give you either. Or both. I've done both.”

“I need a combat pilot,” the general clarified, sounding almost miffed by that development. “And I saw on your license that you were certified by the Atlesian military’s flight school.”

You tried not to cringe and settled for making a grim shape with your mouth. The Atlesian military had been a means to an end for you, mostly because you had some… _disagreements_ with some of their policies, especially those regarding faunus. And it was not secret that your I-don't-care-what-you-think-of-me-attitude had originated among the ranks.

But you weren't about to let your distasteful education mean anything more than that, so you said, "Yessir. I’m familiar with air combat.“

The general stared at you for a moment longer, seeming to weigh and measure your potential to be up to the task. The harshly straight line of his mouth made him seem even more severe than usual, which he always sort of did (seem severe, that is), but you couldn’t feel intimidated. Mostly because it felt less like he was judging you and more like he was trying to will himself to put his faith in you. Which was probably wishful thinking on your part, but… maybe.

Finally, he eased, and set one heavy hand on your shoulder. "Then I only have one thing to say.”

With his free, not-on-your-shoulder hand, he pointed out the window, between the lines of your HUD, to a distant mass of grey rainclouds. You squinted, then tapped your HUD for magnification. Odd, there were… some very strange formations nearer to the ground, maybe the beginnings of a twister, but… oh.

_Ohhhhhhh._

Nevermores. Between you and your destination was a whole sky full of _Giant Nevermores._

“What was the one thing, sir?” you asked, feeling the first electric tingles of excitement in your veins.

The hand on your shoulder _squeezed_.

**“ _Please_ tell me you know what you’re doing.”**

You grinned, gearing up for the flight of your career. “Leave it to me, sir.”

* * *

“I cannot _believe_ you did that.”

You snickered at the general’s look of mild shock. You weren’t sure if you had impressed him or scared the living daylights out of him (probably both), but he didn’t seem angry at all, so you took this as a sign that you shouldn’t take his statements of disbelief too seriously.

“Well, it worked, didn’t it?” you exclaimed, thumping the fold-out table he had seated himself at. "We survived!“

You had also landed. Not at your final destination, but in a clearing on a small speck of island so that you could catch your breath after what was frankly _the most stellar air battle ever_ and so that the general could… get his legs back under him, as it were. And maybe you could have a lunch break while you were at it.

"It did work,” he acknowledged, nodding. His elbows slid along the table as his rested his weight on it. "I just still can’t believe you _did_ _it_.“

"Ah, I’ve done crazier things than that in competition,” you said, waving him off before taking a seat across from him. You would offer him a cup of water as soon as his stomach settled. "No big deal. And you handled it pretty well, if I may say so, sir.“

He raised one dark eyebrow at you. _Gosh, he has pretty eyes._ "You know you don’t have to call me 'sir.’ You’re not in the military.”

That gave you pause, because you knew you couldn’t call him General Broad Shoulders like you’d been doing in your head. This was mission number Lucky Thirteen, and you had always called him 'sir’ or 'general’ to his face. It had never been objected to before.

“And what should I call you?” you asked, trying not to sound as hesitant as you felt.

“You can call me James,” he said, his voice as close to soft as you had ever heard it, although maybe that was just him trying to not be sick from all the barrel rolls you did. But then he frowned slightly, tilting his head down by a fraction. "If you want.“

_If I want?_

"James,” you said, testing it out, because you had never actually said it out loud before. “Yeah, okay. James.”


	2. Flight

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> James pines because what else is he supposed to do?

James liked you.

Well. Obviously, he liked you.

But he spent an irregular amount of time thinking about how much he liked you, as opposed to other people. This was not to say that he disliked other people (although sometimes that was also true), but he liked you a great deal more than anyone else, and he wasn’t sure when that had started happening.

He had found you _particularly not offensive_ when he met you, which was a surprise, simply because he had expected you to be a… _distasteful_ person. You were an independent pilot with military licensing who only practiced privately and refused all military contracts. In Atlas, that practically guaranteed you were up to some shady business when no one was looking, or that you were at least associated with people who _were_ up to shady business. But he had needed a non-military airship piloted by non-military personnel for these particular missions, and you had fit his criteria.

You called him “General” when you were introduced, and then “sir” from then on. Your ship was clean, both in the literal use of the term and also to say that there was no sign that you had ever carried illegal goods. _Clean_. You offered him food from your own supplies, which he hadn’t expected, and then demanded no extra payment for your hospitality. You treated him less like someone paying to be flown from one end of the continent to the other and more like a guest.

It wasn’t until his fifth trip with you that he realized that your airship was your home. You _lived_ in it. He was, in fact, a guest. In your home. The ship must have cost you your life savings and then some.

He decided there and then that even though you would not make a contract with the military, _he_ would make a contract with _you_. You were completely unaware of this contract and couldn’t hold him to it, but he planned on holding _himself_ to it, no matter the cost. You would be his pilot. At every opportunity, he would call on you. Even when it would be easier to hire someone else, you would be the first person he offered the job to.

And he did. And you kept saying yes. As far as he could recall, you had never told him no in response to anything at all.

His thirteenth flight with you was _the_ flight, the one where he realized that you could not only get from Point A to Point B in an efficient manner, but also defend yourself while you were doing it. He had asked you for something he was not sure if you could manage, but then, not only did you manage, but you _laughed_ while you did it, telling him to hold on tight and leave it all to you.

You were insane. You were a genius. You _scared the_ _living daylights out of him_.

“You can call me James,” he had said. “If you want.”

_If you want?_

_If you **want**?_

He could only imagine how _foolish_ he had sounded to you, like a little boy on the playground offering to be your friend. You, who worked and lived out of an airship. You, who engaged in _air combat_ with a flock of _Nevermores_ and then _laughed_ like it was the greatest thing you had ever done in your _life_. You, who refused to sign any military contract _or_ work with the SDC, not for any of the reasons he thought, but because you protested their treatment of the faunus (you never told him any of this; he looked it up, and he felt guilty for invading you private life but he just wanted to _understand_ and he didn’t know how to ask). You, who had set out a bed for him over long missions. Not a fold-out cot; a _bed_ (as if he wasn’t already taking up enough space in your home). You, who called him “sir” even though you didn’t really have to call him anything except “hey, you,” much less something respectful.

You called him James for the first time and he couldn’t help smiling.

One month and two missions later, you still called him James, and he called you by _your_ first name, and if anybody asked him who you were, he would have called you his pilot and his friend. Which was a dangerous thing to say. _His_ pilot. A show of favoritism if there ever was one, and he couldn’t deny it because you were obviously, _blatantly_ his favorite, and trying to say that you weren’t would be like lying to his reflection in the mirror. He wouldn’t believe it, and neither would anybody else.

“What do you think when you see me?” he asked one day, and he immediately wanted to swallow his words because _could he sound any more like an idiot teenager with a crush?_ He had _second-year students_ who navigated their love lives with more subtlety.

Not that this was his love life. He just wanted to know. He respected you. That was all.

But you didn’t look at him like he had just said something painfully embarrassing, and you didn’t shrug him off, and you didn’t deflect the question. Or, you sort of _did_ deflect the question, but you did it in a way that he couldn’t help but be perfectly happy with, because what you said was:

“General Broad Shoulders,” you teased, tapping on one of those shoulders with your knuckles like you were knocking on a door. “I thought that the very first time I saw you.”

 _That’s not what I meant_ , he thought. But that was… okay.

(It was really _cute_ , was what it was.)

Another month, another _four_ missions. He was taking more missions than necessary, ones that could and probably should have been made with a military pilot, but– well, you were _his_ pilot, after all. And you were a very, very good one, perhaps the best he had ever met, and so he couldn’t really bring himself to feel bad about it. He was General Ironwood. He _should_ have the best pilot, which you were.

_Excuses, excuses._

“I have to go to Vale,” he said one day, and he was sure it sounded random, but he had been thinking about it for… awhile. “Beacon, specifically. For a conference with the headmaster there.”

“I haven’t been to Vale since I was a little girl,” you admitted. You picked at the hem of your sleeve. “How long will you be gone?”

_Perfect._

“Well, I’ll be there for at least a week,” he said. “And however long it takes to get there and back, but… I was hoping you would be willing to make a trip outside of your usual territory. This isn’t a military mission. A ship like yours will attract less attention. The headmaster at Beacon would appreciate it.”

He had prepared to give you a whole list of all the reasons you should do this for him and provide you with perks you wouldn’t otherwise have. _It will be like a vacation_ , he was ready to argue. _Vale is so much friendlier than Atlas, there’s so much to do there and you would have a whole week, I would pay for any expenses, we could spend some time together on the ground for once (no, that sounded to much like - no, no, he couldn’t say that)._

But he never had to say any of those things. You accepted his offer then and there, and he felt blindsided by your compliance.

Upon arriving in Vale, he realized that he had a problem.

No, not just a problem. A _Problem_ _™._

The trip to Vale had been the longest trip he ever took with you. It had been surprisingly normal and comfortable, not much different from any other trip he had taken with you, and he got a chance to offer you his “let’s go to Vale” sales pitch in a more natural, less desperate way, mostly because he still felt like he had to convince you not to regret this. He told you about Vale, and all the great things there, and that this would be _easy_ and _enjoyable_ and _worth_ dragging his “broad shoulders” hallway across Remnant for.

And then you actually got to Vale, and the Problem™ came to his attention

He didn’t just want you to bring him to Vale and back. He wanted you to be _with him in Vale._ He wanted to introduce you to Ozpin and Glynda. He wanted to hear Ozpin’s subtle, all-too-amused teasing about _bringing a beautiful woman along_ as soon as you were out of earshot.He wanted to show you all of his favorite places, and see you walking on solid ground, and walk _with you_ on solid ground, and take you to dinner instead of eating alone while thinking about you eating alone, and to sit next to you not because he was in a crowded airship but because he _wanted to_.

 _O_ _h_ , he thought. _Oh_.

“Have fun, James!” you told him, and he could barely see you because the Problem™ was still flashing in his brain, causing ink spots of shock to crowd his vision, and for a moment it hurt to breathe, because he had just experienced a shocking, world-tipping, bone-rattling realization.

He was barely five steps onto Vale soil and he did not want to go one step farther without you at his side. He did not want to go anywhere without you again.

“Please… come with me.”


End file.
